Welcome!/June’s No’s Meh’s and Yesses!

I thought I’d start off my new blog with some product reviews, and do a few other posts before I do the “About Me” post or Q&A.

If you follow me on twitter you know that I’m indulging in my beauty and makeup obsession lately (and if you don’t, you should! @TeenyTwoTimes). I love trying out affordable products, so I thought I’d share some of the new things I tried this month. I’m all about saving money, so if I can save you from buying something awful, I’m happy!

Lets start off with the disappointments. Bad news first, right?

I like a lot of Wet n ‘Wild products. They make a nice BB Cream, awesome brushes, and they are cruelty free! This one was a big disappointment, though. The Megalast liquid lipstick smells and feels like nail polish. As soon as it dried onto my lips it puckered them up and made them look wrinkled. It was incredibly difficult to get off, and left a nasty thick residue. Please do not buy this product. It feels like it’s not appropriate for skin at all.

I’m not familiar with Dr. Brandt’s products (I’ve never even heard of them before!), but I like exfoliators and skin treatments for my face, so I was happy to get this in my February Ipsy bag, but hadn’t actually tried it until this month. I’m not sure if this product is meant to be used alone, but that’s how I used it, and I wasn’t impressed after about 5 days. I noticed no change in my pores, and it left my face feeling greasy and in worse condition after each wash than before! Definitely not worth the $45 price tag for the full sized tube.

Out of all the stuff I tried this month, I guess two isn’t too bad of a score for no-go’s, right?

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Next up are the products that I tried, and was a little underwhelmed by. They were OK, but I’d rather you saved your money to buy a better quality product.

The Jordana display that had these Lip Lights at the store was so eye-catching! I bought this color with high hopes in terms of gloss consistency. I’m a big fan of the Victoria’s Secret glosses, because they don’t taste bad and they’re not too sticky or runny. The Jordana color-shock gloss was pretty thin in consistency, and disappeared from my lips in less than an hour! It’s a cute gloss for maybe photographing a specific makeup look, but in terms of daily wear, I’m not a fan.

My mascara has been the Maybelline Colossal Volum Express waterproof mascara in Glam Black, I believe the color is called. It’s nice and stiff, and doesn’t flake. My eyelashes grow straight down and refuse to hold a curl, and this was the only mascara that held my lashes all day. I’m working on moving towards cruelty free with all of my products so I started on the least expensive end of things. I tried this Elf waterproof mascara expecting at least an equal to my Maybelline go-to, but I was disappointed. It gave me very little volume, didn’t hold the curl as well. Plus, it was a little flaky. No thanks.

This Be a Bombshell cosmetics Pout Potion in Secret was in this month’s Ipsy bag. The color is a nice pinky nude color, but has very little staying power. I wasn’t impressed. I’ll save my few dollars, thanks.

The Crown Brush 3 tone bronzer was also in this month’s Ipsy bag. I find a three toned product in such a small container is pretty useless, as there isn’t much volume of each product to really get a brush in there to apply on your face in the appropriate area. The size of the pan aside, the bronzer was a little light for me, the blush color isn’t a good match for me, and the highlighter was lack luster. Meh.

I love glitter. In pretty much all forms. But not this form. Here’s another Wet n’ Wild product that disappoints. It’s in gel form, which is generally great, because it makes application easy without a lot of fallout. But this glitter is not densely packed enough, so you’re left with a shiny streak with only a few pieces of glitter. It doesn’t dry, so it melts and spreads everywhere around the eyes. Again, no thanks.

Finally, I’m so excited to share my happily approved products that I would definitely recommend if you’re in the market.

Ecotools always comes through! I’ve never bought a sponge or brush from them that I wasn’t satisfied with. This little sponge-tipped thingy was perfect for what I needed, which was a sponge I could get a firm hold on that would also provide me with precision for my under eye area. I like packing on my translucent powder to set my under eye concealer with a sponge, so this was indeed perfect. Soft, precise, perfect. I paid less than $4 for this! Thank you Ecotools. I truly love you.

My twitter followers may have seen the photo I tweeted of Gigi Hadid’s 2015 VMA’s look. She looked so natural and tanned and bronzed. Carli Bybel did a recreation of her look in this this YouTube video. I’ll be recreating Carli’s recreation in my upcoming photo shoot. Carli used the L’Oreal Lumi, and it looked great so I picked up my own and this cream illuminator is so beautiful! Under $11, and it’s a great buy.

As long as a setting spray actually sets my makeup and doesn’t smell bad, it’s good enough in my book. The Elf setting spray actually has a cleaner smell to it than the NYX matte one I’ve tried. For $2.99, it’s a nice alternative to the more expensive sprays out there.

Carli used a Milani lipgloss in Bare Secret, which I could not find in any store I visited. I found this Jordana Lip Out Loud gloss instead that gives my lips a nice nude shimmer to go with my Gigi Hadid look. This gloss had a good consistency. I think I paid $1.99 for this!

Finally, if you haven’t heard about Benefit’s huge launch of brow products, let me be the first to tell you I would love to try all of the others. I got this brow pencil free with my Ulta purchase a couple of weeks ago. Talk about “Goof Proof”. This pencil provides good color in a soft twist-up pencil stick that wipes easily away if you color a little outside your brows’ lines. Set your brows with a brow gel and/or some setting spray and the goof proof turns into poof proof! For free, of course it’s great. I think that the full sized pencil sells at about the same price as the Anastasia Beverly Hills brow pencil, though. So if I’m looking for something like this next time I will probably buy the ABH brand because no one seems to be able to stop raving about it.

That’s all for these lists today. I had a few more things I wanted to add, but I don’t want to make these posts too long so I’ll add the items on to next month.

Have you ever tried any of these items I reviewed? Please tell me about your experience with them in the comments below!

Are there products you’d like me to review? Do you have any blog topics you would like to see? Do you have questions for me? Please send them to my DM’s on twitter, use the contact form, or comment on my Instagram!